Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
The most amazing people pass through Guest Houses where expatriates stay when they are doing business in country or when they are waiting to get their visas to go to South Sudan.
Ryan and Taylor hauled into Global Bag Project Sewing Room:
Guests You Meet Along the Way
While in Africa we met two young men in the Kijiji Dining Room. Valerie and Steve Bell, my sister and brother-in-law, had flown in a few days early to visit the Global Bag Project before they joined the Compassion International team for the rest of their visit. The two young men, with Campus Crusade, had applied for a visa to Sudan where they were working on the Jesus Film Project. Their assignment was to set up a sound studio where nationals, voice actors, could record the film script in their language or dialect, then Ryan and Taylor (the young men) would dub the voices into the film. Just like Hollywood—right?
Not really. We joked about the conditions under which they would be recording—mattresses (if they were lucky) set up to block out ambient sound. It would be several days before their Visas were ready. We struck up conversations over breakfast and dinner and finally just invited them to hang out with us. We had a driver. Steve and Valerie had never been to Karen outside Nairobi before, so one afternoon we did all the tourist visits—the Karen Blixen museum, lunch in the Karen Blixen tea gardens, a tour in the Global Bag Project Sewing Room—whatever we had been planning to do. It was like hauling some of our kids with us; except these fellows were a good ten years younger than the youngest of our kids, who are all thirty and above.
Finally, their visas came through. That morning the news had carried reports of Northern Sudan military units bombing the border between itself and South Sudan. We said our farewells. We prayed for their safety, laying hands on them. The next week we received an e-mail thanking us for hauling them along, and after I returned home, I received another. Here’s a little from the second e-mail. Perhaps it will give you insight into the interesting people you can meet in Guest Houses around the world.
“It would be hard to recount how our time in Muni went. It was definitely a life-changing experience. It was by far the simplest living I’ve ever partaken in. The church we were at and recorded in was a mud hut with a grass roof. We slept outside in our bug tents, watching the stars and feeling the cool air as we drifted into sleep. We bathed in the river that was about 200 yards away from the church. We lived at their pace, waking up to the sun, enjoying morning tea and crackers, working through the day as God permitted, and eventually laying down to sleep usually around 9:30 or 10:00.
“The recording went incredibly well! They were well prepared and whenever they weren’t recording they would gather around practice scripts, reading each other’s parts. The biggest hiccough we had was with our narrator. We were more than halfway done with him when he went missing. We were told he left for Juba because something had happened to his mother. So we were left without a narrator. Praise the Lord for how He worked things out—a man was supposed to play Medium Man One, but was sick, so another man played his part. But the sick man got better and when we next needed the narrator actor he was there and had no part anymore. It was definitely a provision from God.
“We finished recording in nearly five days! The whole time we were worried we would run out of fuel. Both Sundays are in a critical fuel shortage currently because of the war, making it extremely hard to acquire any fuel. God multiplied our fuel, or at least the amount of time it lasted, because we were able to run the generator for a week and a half on only about 50 liters.
“Last night we had the privilege of showing the film to probably about 300 people from the immediate village are! What an awesome time to have all those involved to see the fruits of their labor as soon as we finished! It was a great blessing and treat for Taylor and myself.”
Since only 20% of Americans have U.S. passports and most of those who do travel stay in tourist accommodations, I thought it might be nice to expose you to some of the interesting people we meet in missionary Guest Houses.
I spy God!
————————————————————————————–
Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.
Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.
Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.
For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.
Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
